Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

More of the same, for better or worse. I did enjoy Jared Harris as Moriarty, and Stephen Fry steals all his scenes as Mycroft. I finished this movie with more excitement for a sequel than I did with the original, so of course they never made another one.

Downey Jr. is miscast and turns in a lazy performance. And who can blame him with writing like this? Aiming to appeal to the widest audience possible, Ritchie's "interpretation" of Doyle is not only a sad indicator of what sort of crap that makes money, spawning more crap in the process, he commits an even worse crime: the source material is raped beyond recognition.

I must read some of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. From what I understand here, he must have been quite the John Woo of late 19th century crime fiction: machine guns, heavy artillery, parkour...fascinating stuff! Downey Jr. does a charming Sherlock, but I myself have always preferred Lt. Commander Data's version of Holmes.

Ritchie's Holmes is increasingly one of action and clever one liners, rather than one of mystery; The plot tries to make itself seem more complex than it is, and certain sections end up practically pointless and hard to sit through. Fortunately the dialog is solid, and the characters engaging. Lifted by the charismatic cast (Fry, yay!) and the fact that Ritchie's ever-stylish direction leads to some of the most impressive and artistically coherent action sequences I've seen in quite some time.

Tedious. More an action movie, than a Sherlock Holmes story. Even RDJ is annoying in this. Honestly, compared to BBC's Sherlock this is complete shit. Also, Ritchie needs to stop with the slow-mo.